Re: Testimonies (Stratos 285)
<table width="90%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 align=center><tr><td>Quote, originally posted by Stratos 285 »</td></tr><tr><td class="quote">First off, let me say that I'm not much of a speaker and haven't shared much with anyone in person. I have trouble telling people how I feel. Maybe this will help me make another step in the right direction and come out of "my shell" and be able to be more vocal about what the Lord has done for me.
I grew up in a Christian home. My dad is a preacher and you know what they say about PK's. I am now 33 yrs old, married and have a 5 yr. old daughter. I was saved when I was 8, baptized by my dad and everything was great until my teenage years. I guess that's when the rebelion kicked in. I hear people say how tough it is to be a preacher's kid and I'm not going to argue. Everyone is constantly watching you and when you slip, it gets thrown up in his face. But being a PK is no excuse for the choices I've made. I made my own decisions.
I won't bore you with all the details, but I got into the drinking and other things during high school and let it carry over into my college years. I had a full paid scholarship and dropped out after 2 yrs. What was I doing?
I got married at 20 and wasn't a very good role model husband for the first 12 yrs. The reason I say that is because first and foremost, I DIDN'T TAKE MY FAMILY TO CHURCH. Instead, I was drinking and I had grown a rather extensive vocabulary of words that I wish now that I had never heard before. There was nothing in my life visible to the world to show that I had been saved.
Last year, my wife started taking my daughter to church. And I'm ashamed of that, only because as the head of the family, I should have been taking them all along. It took my daughter (4 at that time) comming home from church on Sunday and telling me she learned about God for me to get off my lazy butt and start going to church. So, I go to church with them one Sunday and have been going ever since. It's been about a year now since we joined the church and in October of 2004, my daughter got saved. What a blessing being able to witness your own child being baptized and seeing the difference that God has made in their life. One day she was staring up at the sky and I asked her what she was doing, she said "I'm talking to God". It made me want to cry.
I have now been married for 13 yrs. to a wonderful wife who knows the Lord and has been supportive in everything I've done. I have a 5 yr. old daughter who knows the Lord, and talks to him daily. I have a roof over my head, a job, a healthy family, an ongoing growing relationship with my Savior and a wonderful church family..............and I don't deserve any of it. God has been so good to us.
Sorry for being a little long winded but I hope that someone reading this gets half the enjoyment I got out of being able to write it.
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Wow...bringing up a 6 year old post I made and reading the first line made me laugh. Let me tell you that a lot has changed since I wrote this. Here I am 6 years later, an ordained minister, serving as Associate Pastor and currently taking seminary classes. Wow...God is good...all the time!!
I look back now and joke about a speech class I had to take in college. When I got through I said I would never be in a profession where I had to speak in front of large crowds. I think if I would have been quiet, I could have probably heard God laughing. His plans were a lot different than mine. http://www.bassboatcentral.com/smileys/thumbsup2.gif
Re: Testimonies (Stratos 285)
There is an old saying Chris..."Man plans...and God laughs."
It's happened to me more than once.
Re: Testimonies (CajunBass)
Well this is my testimony as a former bass tournament fisherman and where God is leading me and has lead me. Back until 1991 I had lived my entire life in north Louisiana; 30 years, moved to east Texas 20 years ago. I grew up fishing but never fished for largemouth bass much until I was in my late teens in the 70's. At about 22 years of age I bought my first boat; mostly a basket case, and I breathed the breath of life back into it. A 14 foot Eldocraft Eldosport IV with 25 hp Merc. I owned a another boat or two after that one but was wanting something I could bass fish out of, had no desire to tournament fish what so ever, maybe a little bit. I decided I was going to purchase a new boat more geared to bass fishing so I started looking for something that would fit my budget and decided I was going to buy a Glassstream Stinger 140. I had gone to get an invoice for one so I could take it to the bank to get financing the next day and as God would have it, that wasn't his plan for me, he had something better. I got home from the boat dealership and as soon as I walked in the door my phone rang. It was my neighbor who had just purchased a fairly new Ranger 320V a few months earlier. He heard I was buying a new boat and was contacting me to sell me his. I knew what he gave for that boat and it was way beyond what I was about to spend for the new Glasstream boat and I knew I couldn't afford it and I told him so over the phone, but he insisted that I come down and look at it because he said he was about to make me a deal of a life time. So I did. The boat actually belonged to his son and he had cosigned for him to get it. They were about to loose it to the bank because his son had been injured in an offshore oil rig boating accident and could no longer make the payments. They let me have that boat for about half of what it was worth and I couldn't believe it. Soon after I bought that boat someone talked me into entering my first bass tournament, again God entervened and I won that tournament. Some of the things I have enjoyed most in life I just sort of backed into, not really intentionally trying to do at all and this was no exception. I was bitten by the tournament bug hard. I went home and imediatley started buying more equipment and lures, finding more tournaments to fish, and looking for a bigger and better boat (which never seemed to stop)...I had been a Christian since I was 13 but had been back sliden since before I got out of high school, I had also become a weekend warrior alchoholic by the age of 18. When I started all this I was still single at that point and stayed that way until I was 31 years old and I met my wife. Anyway, I had let this sport and all the things that go with it become and idol or a god and it was top priority, everything else was a distant second and God really wasn't even in the picture. I worshipped my boat and my equipment and it was rather apparent by how meticuluosly I maintained it all. Every spare dime I had went toward bass fishing. I can remember even when I met my wife and we went out on our first date. We went to the Dallas Boat Show to look at new rigs because I was getting ready to buy another one. We got married about 4 months later and I continued to tounament fish. Our first child was born about a year after we had been married and when he came a long that is when God begin to really work on me. I was still drinking, but had given up smoking already, another nasty habit I had developed. I can remember thinking even before he was born that I had to give up the drinking because I didn't want him to see what it does to his daddy and I didn't want him to follow in my footsteps. I stopped that right then and there. A few years down the road; my son was probably about 5 year old, my next door neighbors invited us to go to a Christmas program at their church. I hadn't darkened the doors of a church in several years at that point in my life. God had been working on me for some time to get back where I belonged and this was his opportunity to close the deal. We started attending that church from that day forward and God really started making changes in my life. I began to listen to christian music a lot and started reading the Bible but things still weren't right. I still worshipped tournament fishing, but God was moving closer to the top where he belonged. I can remember driving to the lakes to practice and listening to christian music all the way because I thought by doing this God would make me a better fisherman; not so, God don't make deals and it seemed when I would do this I would have the worst days on the lakes ever. I could listen to secular music and have and awesome day. Again God was speaking to me through this situation but I wasn't listening, I just figured I needed to listen to more secular music. God wasn't done with me by a long shot though. My wife and I bought a house and begin to remodel it using credit cards. This and a couple of other things was the beginning of the end. The first thing we knew we were in debt up to our eyeballs. The latest boat; a new Nitro, was sitting in the garage collecting dust because I could no longer afford to use it. The last couple of years I owned it I used it twice I think, maybe more but not much. We wound up having to sell it because we had a new god in our lives and it was our house, it was eating us alive financially. I felt like I had been stripped of my life at that point because the tournament game was such a big part of my life. At one point I was video taping all the Bassmaster shows off of TNN and and would set a cry like a baby because I hadn't gotten there yet and wanted that more than anything in the world. It took me a while to realize why all this happened, I was worshipping the things of this world and not God. We eventually sold the house and bought another one, got rid of all the exccesive debt, and had another child. These days I walk with the Lord and sometimes let my kids get in the way of my relationship with God but for the most part He is first and the more I worship, pray and study the Bible the less that happens. I have since become a member of a cowboy church and I'm not even a cowboy. I have become the Sunday morning and Wednesday night service prayer leader and God has really blessed me over the past few years. I haven't owned a bass boat since March of 2000, but hear lately the bug has really been after me to get another boat and get back in the game. I pray about this a lot and if God leads me in that direction I pray that I will always put Him first. I pray that I can use this situation to bring others to Christ. Please pray for me. Thanks
Re: Testimonies (ogles824)
This is a great testimony because they way u were doing I was doing the same and before every tournament I would pray about it and all and it would end up being a bust fir me on the water. But I've also been sitting here wondering tonight about how I've back sliden, even though I go to church just about every Sunday and Wednesday im still filling a sense that I've lost touch with god or something. I am actually thinking about going to sit down with my preacher next week and jus talk with him some about how I've been feelinglately to see if I can get some insight, because I just kinda feel like things r not right for me. Which I am stressing myself out a little bit more now over different things because im wanting to marry my wonderful girlfriend, which by the way has helped drive me closer to god, and also I've decided to sell my boat and im trying to get a house and so on and so on... I don't know if im nuisance stretching myself to thin or what but what I do know is that I've lost that touch from god that I urge to have.. sorry for this being so long I jus mentioned to foment on ur post and well I jus kinda felt led to continue typing..
Re: Testimonies (CajunBass)
I can not begin to tell all that the Lord has done for me, He just sent me to the doctor with what I thought was a cold and I was having a heart attack, they got it under control and did a heart cath and found I had 70% blockage's behind my heart (in the area they call the "widowmaker" and got me back headed in the right direction. I must say that " I am so thankful that the Lord dont treat me like I treat him " I give all the Glory what I am and will be to him http://www.bassboatcentral.com/smileys/praying.gif
Larry
Re: Testimonies (CajunBass)
Hello BBC. I just signed up and figured here would be a good place to get started.
Short Testimony
I grew up in Central Virginia and spent a little time in church when I was a kid but once I got older I strayed away, very far away. I had my share of what I thought was fun(drinking and drugs) and you can guess where that lead me, nowhere. I got multiple DUI's and lost my right to drive for 10 years. When it was time to try and get my license back the court made it mandatory that I attend AA meetings and thats where it started to turn around. Oh, I forgot to mention that I had several divorces along the way and lost everything several times. Once I started getting my stuff straight I started hunting down a female friend again and lucky for me Wendy found me. She is a Christian(Southern Baptist) and I started going with her to church and things started getting even better. I have somewhat been in the lure making business for a about 15 years but was struggling since most of my focus was on having fun instead of working. Well since I have given my life to Christ that has all changed. Wendy and I got married on August 9 last year and my business is now great. I have faith that The Lord will guide me during my travels and I really look forward to sharing them with you all here.
Dean
D & W Customs